Round Three

December 6th – C and I selected Palace Café as our next destination for Brennan’s Bash 2010. This restaurant is located on Canal Street and definitely has the “old-school” New Orleans feel to it. It is housed in the old Werlein’s Building, which has been a New Orleans landmark since the turn of the century.

C and I were seated near the kitchen and it was a lot of fun watching the bustle back there. One of the chef’s saw me taking photos and I let him know that I was planning on writing about my dining experiences at the Brennan’s restaurants. Boy, was that the right thing to do! My already excellent service kicked up a notch and I got treated like a full-fledged food writer, instead of just an aspiring food blogger.

For my appetizer Blue Cheese Salad, which was excellent. I decided to forgo the shaved red onions, however, because I just didn’t know how they would affect C later on in the day (we are exclusively breastfeeding). As I was finishing up my salad, the chef that I had spoken to earlier brought me out a little sampler of the three soups they had that day: Turtle Soup, Gumbo and the Soup du Jour, which for the life of me, I can’t remember what exactly it was, but it had root vegetables. My favorite of the soups was by far the gumbo, which was loaded with seafood including some really fat oysters!

By the time my entrée came along, the Creole Seasoned Petite Filet Mignon, I was already starting to feel a little bit full so I wasn’t anticipating finishing it. Yeah, that didn’t happen! No way was I going to waste any of the wonderful steak that was presented. The temperature, medium rare, was perfect and the beef was so tender that it practically melted in my mouth. The potatoes, mushrooms and blue cheese (a theme for this meal) complemented each other so beautifully. I devoured every bite except for some of the onions, although I did sneak a couple of those in!

Okay, since clearly at this point we know that I’m completely stuffed, you may assume that once again I skipped dessert, like I did at Ralph’s. Nope, you would be wrong! I plunged ahead in my gluttony and ordered the Blueberry Crumble Cheesecake. So rich and creamy! And again, my friend, the chef, had a special little treat for me, a serving of their signature dessert, White Chocolate Bread pudding. Both desserts were amazing, and I’m not usually a fan of bread pudding since it is so heavy. But Palace Café’s spin on it is something to experience. I did manage to control myself and not finish both desserts, but I did have them boxed and took them home with me!

My experience at Palace was wonderful, not just because of the food, but because of the staff. Very often restaurant employees dread seeing infants coming into the dining room, and I can understand that, but Palace’s staff was very accomodating and welcoming of my little boy. My waiter was super-personable and visited with me for a while entertaining me with some of the Brennan’s family history. One of the managers and I chatted for a good while about food and our families, and another one of the servers just kept popping over my shoulder to sit and stare at my peacefully sleeping baby! So, even though I was technically alone for my meal, I certainly didn’t feel that way. Thumbs up, Palace Café!

Goodness! Reading back on this post, I cannot believe how much I ate! I am so grateful that Hubby had dinner plans with a client that night because there is no way I wanted to cook that night!